An article published in the “South African Journal of Science” describes the sophisticated technologies used to create a 3D map of the cave in which the bones of more than 1,500 hominid fossils called Homo Naledi were found. The team of Professor Lee Berger of the University of the Witwatersrand’s (Wits) was forced to work in difficult conditions and it’s for this reason that Ashley Kruger, part of his team, turned to various technologies to map the cave.

The announcement of the discovery of the Homo Naledi’s bones in a cave called Rising Star about 50 km north-west of Johannesburg, South Africa, in September 2015 represented an event in the field of paleontology. The considerable amount of bones constitute a treasure given that generally in a site just a few get found. The attribution of the bones to a new species raised discussions but also the interest in that discovery.

In 2013, Lee Berger was forced to seek really thin women who could go all the way into the cave. The difficulty was in particular in the last section, called Dinaledi Chamber, characterized by a 12 meters (40 feet) vertical chute and a gap of only 18 centimeters (about 7″). The first devices were introduced because Berger was unable to descend into the chamber and had to follow the operations from the surface looking at pictures transmitted by the cameras.

Ashley Kruger is a doctoral candidate in paleoanthropology at the Institute of Evolutionary Studies at Wits who directed this new part of the studies in the cave. His team used a variety of technologies, including advanced ones, to carry out the task: laser scanning, photogrammetry and 3D mapping technologies.

Even drones were used during the task and at the end they obtained high-resolution images along with other data. Putting all together, they created a global 3D map of all the Rising Star cave, including the Dinaledi Chamber. This allowed to determine for example that the Dinaledi Chamber is about 10 meters (about 33 feet) deeper than originally estimated.

The sense of this high-tech mapping is to help the scientists on the surface who can’t get down into the Dinaledi Chamber to have the information the need on how to proceed with the excavations analyzing the virtual version available to them.

Paleontologists also hope to understand how the bodies of Homo Naledi were brought into the cave. All the information are useful to this research, even more so because there are still many uncertainties about these hominids, beginning with their bones’ dating.